The Coalition is uniquely positioned to be a resource for members of the press looking to do stories about Jewish service. We have an archive of first hand accounts of service, a variety of photos available for use in the media, and service alumni willing to be interviewed about their experiences. We can also provide general background information as well as act as a referral resource for journalists seeking to do stories about particular aspects of service.

• New Jersey Jewish News
  At Your Service
  In 1977, when other teenage friends were hitting the beach or flipping burgers, Jordan Sklar of Montclair spent the summer renovating homes in Springfield, Mass. The experience still holds fond memories. “Some of the things that stand out for me were working with local teenagers renovating homes in an African-American neighborhood,” Sklar recalled. “I also enjoyed the camaraderie of the volunteers and the enthusiasm and involvement of the group leaders. As a practical matter, I learned some useful hands-on skills about construction and home repair…that has served in good stead since.”June 28, 2007

• Excerpted from The Jewish Week
  A Long Road To Changing the World
  Each of the nine times I have been to Israel has been a completely different experience — with my family or at Hebrew U leading a birthright trip or at a conference. But this time I was part of a mission of over 500 young Jews who had arrived a few weeks ago to make a difference. On this trip, there would be no Kotel visit, no partying in Tel Aviv, no visiting relatives on kibbutzim. This was ten days devoted to social service in communities ravaged by this past summer’s war. There would be painting and reforestation, discussion, networking and ultimately, a feeling that we had a long road ahead of us.
  
  Most of the buses belonged to the Jewish Coalition for Service, and hundreds of Hillel students arrived a week later in a “second wave” of participants. Ours was a group of about 40 mostly twenty-somethings, alumni of Schusterman-sponsored leadership programs like ROI 120 and Kivun, and all imported under the aegis of the sponsoring organization, the new Center for Leadership Initiatives, whose first major project was this effort to help “rebuild the North.”
  February 9, 2007

• Josh Kahn, The Jewish Week / Fresh Ink for Teens
  Honduran Hospitality
  I started the day by shining a flashlight into my hiking boots to check for scorpions. I was one of a group of 14 Jewish high school students sent by the American Jewish World Service to help construct a potable water system in a village devastated by Hurricane Mitch. I had known before I left New York that I would be in the minority, since I keep kosher and observe Shabbat. I came into the group very nervous about whether I would be accepted. By the end, they were all not only accepting me, but were watching out for me. Not only did we live Jewish values through our work in Honduras, but now some of my fiercest debating partners are my closest friends. November 19, 2005

• JTA, By Tzvi Kahn
  Youth find meaning, Judaism by helping the less fortunate
  With flecks of paint peeling from the walls, cases of supplies strewn haphazardly about the stained tile floors, and ceiling fans circulating hot air, this dilapidated building sits in an impoverished Brooklyn neighborhood that is hardly the ideal venue for a late-night stroll.
  August 2, 2005

• JVibe
  J-Serve 2005-New National Day of Service for Jewish Teens
  An interview with Simha Rosenberg at the Jewish Coalition for Service
  May 20, 2005

• Baltimore Jewish Times.com
  Sacred Trash
  When I was a bar mitzvah at Temple Emanuel's former Milford Mill Road location in 1966, I remember receiving two gifts. One was an engraved silver Kiddush cup from the temple sisterhood. The other was the "Holy Scriptures," the English version of the Bible, complete with Prophets and Commentaries.
  May 20, 2005

• Washington Jewish Week
  Service with a J Project aims to build Jewish identity through civic works
  Hannah Roth has participated in service projects at her synagogue, but Sunday's outing to clean up Watts Branch Park in Northeast D.C. was different.
  April 21, 2005

• United Jewish Communities
  Jewish Teens Take Time To Volunteer in J-Serve 2005 on April 17
  Jewish Teens Support Youth Service America’s National Youth Service Day
  April 17, 2005

• UJA - Federation of New York
  J-Serve Teens to Volunteer April 17
  New York area teens will participate in national initiative to combine Jewish learning with service.
  April 15, 2005

• The Jewish Week
  Getting Teens To Volunteer
  New York area teens will participate in national initiative to combine Jewish learning with service.
  April 14, 2005

• JTA News
  Program builds Jewish identity
  Teens from the Jewish Youth Philanthropy Institute help clean up the Watts Branch Park in Washington in April 2004.
  April 12, 2005

• The Jewish Community Website of Greater Philadelphia
  PHILADELPHIA REGION TEENS TAKE TIME TO VOLUNTEER – J-SERVE 2005 TO BE HELD ON APRIL 17, 2005
  Jewish Community High School of Gratz College, JCC’s of Philadelphia, and Jewish Relief Agency selected as one of ten Lead Communities.
  March 28, 2005

• The Associated - Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore
  FIRST-EVER NATIONAL DAY OF VOLUNTEERISM AND SERVICE LEARNING FOR JEWISH TEENS: BALTIMORE TEENS TAKE TIME TO VOLUNTEER
  Jewish Volunteer Connection, a program of THE ASSOCIATED: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, is seeking volunteers to participate in J-Serve 2005, the first-ever national day of volunteerism and service learning for Jewish teens.
  March 18, 2005

• AJSS Press Release
  It's Not Your Average Summer Vacation
  They won’t be relaxing on the beach this summer. Forty-four high-school students have embarked on a summer of service under the auspices of American Jewish Society for Service (AJSS). This group of young men and women is helping disadvantaged communities in need as part of this work camp program, designed explicitly for high-school students. Community organizations in Alaska, Oregon, and New Mexico are hosting these students as they work collaboratively with community members on local service projects.
  July 16, 2004

• Excerpted from JTA
  Spring Break Trips Teach Students About Jewish Life in South America, By Florencia Arbiser
  Yael Kolett got goosebumps when elderly Uruguayan Jews at the Jewish Home for the Aged in Montevideo sang Hava Nagila with her, tapping the table with their spoons. Ashley Goldberg nearly cried when a thin girl held her hand at Ieladeinu, a home for Jewish children at risk.
  April 8, 2004

• Excerpted from JTA
  U.S. Hillel Students Help Comfort Uruguay’s Impoverished Residents, By Michelle Dardashti
  Por dignidad no podemos permanecer pasivos: “For dignity we cannot remain passive.” Painted across the soup kitchen in the impoverished El Cerro neighborhood on the outskirts of Montevideo, these words were the first thing North American students saw when they arrived at one of the primary sites of their Alternative Spring Break Tzedek Hillel project in Uruguay.
  April 7, 2004

• Excerpted from JTA
  American Volunteer Builds Jewish Life in Country Known for its Jewish Past, By Michael J. Jordon
  Catch Koby while you can. Because for a volunteer, Koby Oppenheim gives the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee its money’s worth. The 25-year-old is often spotted dashing from task to task across the Jewish communal compound known in Minsk as “The Campus.”
  April 1, 2004

• Excerpted from Forward
  Offering Our Services Between Services in El Salvador
  The sun in Ciudad Romero in El Salvador is as glaring and hot as the Negev sun. Yes, El Salvador. It’s not exactly...a tourist mecca, but it is a mecca of sorts to delegations organized by American Jewish World Service, a rapidly growing and increasingly effective organization devoted to connecting Jews and Judaism to the developing world, including El Salvador, where I improbably find myself in the company of 26 North American rabbinical students and two AJWS staff people.
  January 30, 2004

• Excerpted from The New York Times
  Of Talmudic Texts and Tomato Plants, By Peter Steinfels
  All this week, Aaron Levy, who hopes to be ordained an Orthodox rabbi this spring, has been poring over Talmudic texts when not fighting arctic winds and slushy intersections in Manhattan. Last week, he was toiling under a hot sun in El Salvador, tilling fields for tomato plants and clearing weeds around small papaya trees.
  January 17, 2004

• Excerpted from Jewish Currents
  Making Service Fundamental to Jewish Life, by Ruth Messinger
  As 21st Century American Jews, we enjoy affluence and influence that are unique in Jewish history. At the same time, as members of an international people, Jews have an instructive role to play in helping Americans to understand that our world is interconnected: that poverty, hunger, disease and oppression anywhere on the globe affect us all.
  October 1, 2003

• Excerpted from the Baltimore JewishTimes
  Baltimore Pushes Jewish Coalition for Service, By Barbara Pash
  Darrell D. Friedman calls it a "first in the Jewish world." Mr. Friedman, president of the Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, is talking about the newly formed Jewish Coalition for Service. . . The Coalition is a national collaborative effort to promote Jewish-sponsored service and volunteer programs.
  November 18, 2002

• Excerpted from the Jewish Journal – Broward North
  Coalition formed to unite Jewish service, volunteer programs, by Kelly Landy
  Alysha Goldstein, southeast regional youth director for United Synagogue Youth, participated in a Joint Distribution Committee service-year abroad in Romania, working primarily with Jewish youth. “I just always wanted to see how other Jews lived and be involved in their culture and their society and this gave me an opportunity to do outreach with different communities,” Goldstein said.
  October 24, 2002

• Excerpted from the Washington Jewish Week
  New group promotes Jewish service, By Sharon Samber, JTA (Paula Amann of the WJW contributed to this article.)
  If only the Jewish Coalition for Service had been around when she was in college and wanted to volunteer, but didn’t know where to find opportunities, Ilana Aisen says. Many of the organizations she looked into just weren’t the right fit. “I needed the Jewish piece of it to get hooked in."
  September 26, 2002